A working actor for more than four decades, Sigrid Thornton is accustomed to early starts. Unfazed by the transition from darkness to light, she stands perfectly silhouetted in the half-light, beside the glass-like surface of a nearby ocean pool, as the sun sends its first spray of gold across the sky.

Around her is the marketing machinery powering her return to television screens as Seachange's delightful, dysfunctional mother-and magistrate Laura Gibson; behind her the water casts a shimmering reflection of the iconic Australian actor.

"I think I see in the mirror someone who's actually really, really striving to live a full life," Sigrid says as we retire to the comfortable indoors. "I'm pretty determined to just keep going. And I don't mean that as an actor. I mean, to strive for fulfilment, for happiness, for [creative] enrichment.

"She adds that these aspects of her personality haven't really changed. "They've been tempered by sadness, pain and grief, and all of the things that happen to most people if they live long enough. And that's not an easy thing."